Printable Bookplates

Ever loan a book to someone never to see it again? Putting your name in the front of the book can help, and it certainly doesn’t hurt if you have a nice set of bookplates you can print out inexpensively at home.

For fun, I decided to design a set for myself — and anyone else who’d like to try them. I designed a color set, and — because I only have a black and white laser printer at home, (and one that’s low on toner as well) — a black and white only version too. Click the images below to download the PDF files.

I designed these to print on Avery 2″ x 4″ shipping labels. I found a package for less than $5 at Walmart for 100 labels. (I bought the Eco Friendly labels but these would work as well.)

If you’ve ever printed on labels, you know it can be frustrating at times. Here’s the only advice I can give: Make sure the labels you use are compatible with the template I followed — Avery Template 5163 (you don’t need to download the template yourself).

When you’re ready to print a sheet, I’d recommend printing a test page out on a plain piece of paper first. Hold it up behind your label sheet and see if it looks like it will align correctly. This may save you some trouble. And don’t scale the size when you print.

Even with all that, the way your printer pulls the labels in can slightly misalign them… as it did with mine to a small degree. So I designed these to not print to the edge… just to minimize any small issues there. If you use these, I hope these work for you without any hassle!